Field of the Invention and Related Art Statement
The present invention relates to a method of measuring an amount of total protein contained in a serum sample with the aid of an electrophoretic image formed by an electrophoretic apparatus.
In known electrophoretic apparatuses, a fraction image pattern representing fraction images of albumin (Alb), .alpha..sub.1 -globulin (.alpha..sub.1 -G), .alpha..sub.2 -globulin (.alpha..sub.2 -G), .beta.-globulin (.beta.-G) and .gamma.-globulin (.gamma.-G), fraction percentages of these protein components and A/G value (a ratio of albumin relative to globulin) are generally recorded on a test report. Nowadays, it has become important to monitor a variation in absolute amounts of respective protein components in addition to a variation in fraction percentages which represent relative amounts of respective protein components. Therefore, it has been practised to measure an amount of total protein of a sample by means of a separate biochemical analyzer and the measured amount of total protein is entered into the electrophoretic apparatus and absolute amounts of respective substances of the sample are calculated by multiplying the fraction percentages by the amount of total protein. The absolute amounts thus calculated are also printed on the test report.
However, the operation of measuring the amounts of total protein of respective samples by the separate biochemical analyzer and entering the amounts of total protein thus measured into the electrophoretic apparatus is very cumbersome and there might be produced any error in the identification of samples. Moreover, the number of test items which can be analyzed by the biochemical analyzer is decreased by one.